


A Very Valdez Christmas

by Harryissuchalittleshit



Series: Valdez Family [3]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, I might continue this some day, Piper saving the day with an Iris message, and four babies missing their mama, featuring Leo decorating the house with four small children, this is just a cute Christmas drabble
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-21
Updated: 2017-12-21
Packaged: 2019-02-18 04:24:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13092342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Harryissuchalittleshit/pseuds/Harryissuchalittleshit
Summary: Leo just misses his wife, and their children just miss their mama. At least they have decorating the house to keep them busy.





	A Very Valdez Christmas

Three out of four sleeping children was considered an accomplishment in Leo’s book; the only exception was baby Nico. Though seeing as he was thirteen months old and surprisingly a night owl, Leo felt satisfied. If only his daughters weren’t laying all over him, Zoe was lying across his legs, and both Diana and Esperanza had a hold on one of his shoulders, Nico was laying on his chest. It took a bit of wiggling and coaxing to get out of his daughter’s arms, but once he was, he and baby Nico were on their way out of his and Calypso’s bedroom and down the stairs to the kitchen.

 

Calypso was going to be home in a few hours and there was still a lot of work to do.

 

Once Leo started making some rice atole and wrapped baby Nico up in a blanket and put him in his playpen, he got started on bringing down decorations for the kids to put up. They had gotten quite a few of Percy and Annabeth’s Christmas decorations. This would be their first real Christmas since they disappeared; last year hadn’t felt real without them.

 

Leo smiled to himself as he began to open boxes and sort through ornaments; baby Nico had been almost seven weeks old last Christmas and all Leo had wanted was a few uninterrupted hours of sleep for a gift, which he wasn’t able to get.

 

“Papa, I’ms hungry,” Esperanza said as she walked down the stairs; Zoe was holding her hand and rubbing her eyes as she followed her sister. A lot of people thought that they were twins, Zoe his quiet little princess and Esperanza his outspoken troublemaker, but they had been born nine months apart, Esperanza barely being born in the same year as her older sister Zoe.

 

“Hola mis hermosas hijas,” he said to the two little girls, Zoe giggled and Esperanza ran to Leo’s side, pulling her older sister with her. “Permítanme hacer una taza de arroz.”*

 

“Por favor, papa!” yelled Zoe, causing baby Nico to look up from his blanket and the stuffed toy that Leo had left in there the last few days to keep his son entertained.

 

“Go into the kitchen and I’ll get your sister,” he told the two of them, smiling as they ran off. It took him less than a minute to throw Diana over his shoulder and to grab baby Nico out of his playpen. Once he had everyone situated at the table or in their high chair –in baby Nico’s case. He got everyone a cup of rice atole and sat down with a bowl for himself. He didn’t worry about any of them burning themselves, he had learned through accident that all of his children could eat hot food just off the stove or out of the oven, in fact it didn’t matter if it was hot in temperature or in spice, his little ones liked it either way.

 

“Papa, are we going to decorate the tree?” Zoe asked, if the others hadn’t been eating and being quiet, Leo was sure he wouldn’t have heard her. Leo had missed a lot of things his eldest daughter had said in the last few days because of his other loud children. Diana was the loudest of the four, with powerful lungs and a bit of separation anxiety from both of her parents; it had been a long few days.

 

“Yes, mi dulce.”** he answered, “I brought all the decorations down, but we must hurry, mama will be at the train station at two today.”

 

Calypso’s homecoming would be cutting into nap time, but hopefully that would help the kids go to bed early tonight. Tomorrow was Christmas and he wanted the kids to sleep in, so he could too.

 

“Mama’s coming home?” asked Esperanza, she dropped her spoon in excitement, “but I thought she left forever!”

 

“No, mi hija,” Leo said, half laughing, half not wanting to offend her, “mama’s been away for her writing, for her stories remember. She’s coming home today because tomorrow’s Christmas. It’s Christmas Eve today, tonight Santa Clause is coming to bring you presents.”

 

Suddenly his children were even more excited about Santa Clause than their madre coming home, what a surprise there.

 

He put on the TV while he cleaned up breakfast, letting the kids play and watch whatever Christmas movie was on, hopefully they could just watch all the old Claymation movies from before even his mother was born. Only this seemed to cause a problem, it took four and a half hours for them to decorate the house, mostly because one of the girls would get distracted and then the others would follow suit. It had been easy to get them to concentrate on the tree; they put up ornaments and directed Leo where to put up ornaments and the star and everything else. Then came the hard part, lights, and tinsels, and all the other knick-knacks that he and Calypso had made and collected over the years had to find homes in their home.

 

He was able to put baby Nico in his playpen to stay out of the way, but the girls, they were running around and causing trouble. Leo couldn’t leave the living room without bringing two of the girls with him, and even then he had to put one of them in baby Nico’s playpen.

 

It wasn’t the first time Leo cursed himself for having four kids under the age of five. It had been easy when Zoe and Esperanza were babies and Calypso had been pregnant with Diana, but then they took a break in between Diana and Nico and for once Leo had caught up on sleep.

 

That year had been a gods send, but now with four troublesome toddlers, he was trying to do everything he could not to pull his own hair out.

 

His savior had come in the form of an Iris message. Piper called every week, on Friday for the weekly report, the time often varied, but seeing as it was Christmas Eve, neither of them were working. Piper had the next week off from work, Jason had until the high school he taught at went back from break, and Leo had the shop closed on the Eve’s and Day’s of most major holidays, depending on importance.

 

But Piper calling, with her own family as entertainment for the girls, was a blessing. Stephan, Lucy, and Michael all talked to the girls through Iris message, while Leo called Piper on her phone and they chatted like they normally did.

 

“Hard week,” she asked as he hung up lights around the bedroom doors, he laughed.

 

“Define hard week,” he told her, pushing a push pin into place, “I always forget how much Calypso does around here until she leaves for a few days.”

           

“I figure as much, Jason has it pretty much down, it’s even easier now that Lucy’s in preschool,” she said, he could hear clicking on her end, like a computer mouse. “How are the other two troublemakers?”

 

“Bianca is in preschool with Zoe and Esperanza, apparently she made a sink exploded the other day. While Malcolm is still the calm and loving sunshine child, he makes Nico laugh a lot,” he told her, thinking of the pair of dark hair water loving siblings only reminded him of Percy and Annabeth. “What about your pair?”

 

“Charles is the smartass we always knew he would be, and Lucas has discovered how much fun it is to color,” Piper said, and Leo could hear the fond smile in her voice, “makes me miss them more every day.”

 

“Yeah, me too; have you heard from Hazel and Frank lately?” Leo switched over to tinsel for the bathroom.

 

“Yeah, the little monsters are well, Hazel was telling me that they were thinking of having another already,” she said, Leo rolled his eyes.

 

“And to think that she didn’t even want to have children,” Leo told her, walking downstairs to check on his girls, he took Diana out of the playpen so she could see Michael better in the Iris message. “Which reminds me, how’s Jason?”

 

“He’s here, watching the kids on our side of the Iris message, and yours too may I add.” Leo smiled to himself and started working on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch.

 

“Oh, just didn’t see Blonde Brainiac number two. I take it he’s well then.”

 

“For the most part, he’s been bored out of his mind the last few days, all of his grading has been done and put into the books and he even finished all the Christmas shopping. I told him that if he did everything before break then he would be bored, but he never listens to me.” Leo snorted with laughter and could practically hear Piper rolling her eyes through the phone. “Shut it Valdez.”

 

“I have to marathon the next hour to make it to the train station early, call us on Sunday, okay?” he asked her, he could hear her rolling her eyes again as she agreed. He smiled told her that he loved her and they exchanged their usual goodbyes.

 

He had the kids say goodbye to one another and then got them all set up at the table for lunch. After cleaning them all up and getting them dressed in real clothes and then in their winter gear, he piled the car up with his small army of children and head out to the train station. He may have only had ten minutes to get there, but at least they weren’t going to be terribly late.

 

She had apparently only been standing there for five minutes and he continuously apologized the whole trip home and then blamed it on Piper’s Iris message. She told him that it didn’t matter, that it was almost Christmas, and four kids under the age of five was difficult to deal with.

 

He was just happy to have her back.

 

She was happy to be back.

 

* * *

 

 

*hello my beautiful daughters, let me make you a cup of rice

**my sweet

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea if I'll continue this, it's been sitting in my wips for the last four years. It's just suppose to be cute and simple.


End file.
